https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05010-7 Skip to main content Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. Advertisement Advertisement Nature * View all journals * Search * My Account Login * Explore content * About the journal * Publish with us Subscribe * Sign up for alerts * RSS feed 1. nature 2. articles 3. article * Article * Published: 27 July 2022 Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe * Richard P. Evershed ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9483-2750^1, * George Davey Smith ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1407-8314^2,3,4, * Melanie Roffet-Salque ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9508-788X^1, * Adrian Timpson ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0292-8729^5^ nAff85, * Yoan Diekmann ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0030-0786^5,6, * Matthew S. Lyon^2,3,4, * Lucy J. E. Cramp ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2012-2753^7, * Emmanuelle Casanova^1, * Jessica Smyth ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8124-1444^1,8, * Helen L. Whelton ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0844-9916^1, * Julie Dunne ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2547-1071^1, * Veronika Brychova^9^ nAff86, * Lucija Soberl^1, * Pascale Gerbault^5,10, * Rosalind E. Gillis^11,12, * Volker Heyd^7^ nAff87, * Emily Johnson^13^ nAff88, * Iain Kendall^1, * Katie Manning^14, * Arkadiusz Marciniak^15, * Alan K. Outram ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3360-089X^13, * Jean-Denis Vigne^11, * Stephen Shennan^16, * Andrew Bevan ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7967-3117^16, * Sue Colledge^16, * Lyndsay Allason-Jones^17, * Luc Amkreutz ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4664-5552^18, * Alexandra Anders^19, * Rose-Marie Arbogast^20, * Adrian Balasescu^21, * Eszter Banffy ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5156-826X^22,23, * Alistair Barclay^24, * Anja Behrens^25, * Peter Bogucki ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9547-9311^26, * Angel Carrancho Alonso^27, * Jose Miguel Carretero^28,29, * Nigel Cavanagh^30, * Erich Classen ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0860-7205^31, * Hipolito Collado Giraldo^32,33, * Matthias Conrad^34, * Piroska Csengeri^35, * Lech Czerniak^36, * Maciej Debiec^37, * Anthony Denaire ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1257-7865^38, * Laszlo Domboroczki^39, * Christina Donald^40, * Julia Ebert^41, * Christopher Evans^42, * Marta Frances-Negro^28, * Detlef Gronenborn^43, * Fabian Haack^44, * Matthias Halle^34, * Caroline Hamon^45, * Roman Hulshoff^46, * Michael Ilett^45, * Eneko Iriarte ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8365-5616^28, * Janos Jakucs^22, * Christian Jeunesse^20, * Melanie Johnson^47, * Andy M. Jones^48, * Necmi Karul^49, * Dmytro Kiosak^50,51, * Nadezhda Kotova^52, * Rudiger Krause^53, * Saskia Kretschmer^34, * Marta Kruger^54, * Philippe Lefranc^55, * Olivia Lelong^56^ nAff89, * Eva Lenneis ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8991-4420^57, * Andrey Logvin^58, * Friedrich Luth^25, * Tibor Marton^22, * Jane Marley^59, * Richard Mortimer^60, * Luiz Oosterbeek^33,61,62, * Krisztian Oross^22, * Juraj Pavuk^63, * Joachim Pechtl^64^ nAff90, * Pierre Petrequin^65, * Joshua Pollard^66, * Richard Pollard^67, * Dominic Powlesland ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-0739^68, * Joanna Pyzel^36, * Pal Raczky^19, * Andrew Richardson^69, * Peter Rowe^70^ nAff91, * Stephen Rowland^71, * Ian Rowlandson^72, * Thomas Saile^73, * Katalin Sebok^19, * Wolfram Schier^41, * Germo Schmalfuss^34, * Svetlana Sharapova^74, * Helen Sharp^67, * Alison Sheridan ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6204-3776^75, * Irina Shevnina^58, * Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka^76^ nAff92, * Peter Stadler^57, * Harald Stauble^34, * Astrid Stobbe^53, * Darko Stojanovski^77,78, * Nenad Tasic^79, * Ivo van Wijk^80, * Ivana Vostrovska^81^ nAff93, * Jasna Vukovic^79, * Sabine Wolfram^82, * Andrea Zeeb-Lanz^83 & * Mark G. Thomas ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2452-981X^5,84 Nature volume 608, pages 336-345 (2022)Cite this article * 13k Accesses * 3 Citations * 1744 Altmetric * Metrics details Subjects * Archaeology * Evolutionary biology This article has been updated Abstract In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years^1. Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions^2,3. Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectories than uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank^4,5 cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation--proxies for these drivers--provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Your institute does not have access to this article Access options Access through your institution Access through your institution Change institution Buy or subscribe Subscribe to Nature+ Get immediate online access to the entire Nature family of 50+ journals $29.99 monthly Subscribe Subscribe to Journal Get full journal access for 1 year $199.00 only $3.90 per issue Subscribe All prices are NET prices. VAT will be added later in the checkout. Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Buy article Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube. $32.00 Buy All prices are NET prices. Additional access options: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions Fig. 1: Geographical and temporal distribution of archaeological milk fat residues in potsherds. [41586_2022_5010_Fig1_HTML] Fig. 2: Regional variation in milk use in prehistoric Europe. [41586_2022_5010_Fig2_HTML] Fig. 3: Regional variation in prehistoric LP allele frequencies in Europe. [41586_2022_5010_Fig3_HTML] Fig. 4: LP variant association with health outcomes. [41586_2022_5010_Fig4_HT] Data availability Data for running the aDNA analyses are available from https:// github.com/ydiekmann/Evershed_Nature_2022. KML files, a summary of archaeological milk residue data, ecological proxy variables and a summary of radiocarbon dates are available from https://github.com/ AdrianTimpson/2020-03-03523A. UK Biobank data are available from: https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/. Code availability R code for running the aDNA analyses is available from https:// github.com/ydiekmann/Evershed_Nature_2022. Open-source R Code for running the UK Biobank analyses under MIT license are available from https://github.com/MRCIEU/lp-coevolution. 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Y.D. and M.G.T. received funding from the ERC Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 788616 YMPACT) and A.T. and M.G.T. received funding from the ERC Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 951385 COREX). G.D.S. and M.S.L. work in the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol (MC_UU_00011/1). P. Bickle (University of York, UK) and D. Altoft are acknowledged for the sampling of some potsherds from this study. We thank S. Kalieva and V. Logvin (Kostanay State University, Kazakhstan), C. Lohr (Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology, Mainz, Germany), J. Luning (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt, Germany), I. Pavlu (Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) and R. W. Schmitz (LVR-LandesMuseum, Bonn, Germany) for providing some of the sherds presented in this study. We are grateful to K. Dwyer, teaching fellow in English grammar and research methodology at University College London (UCL), for clarifying lactase non-persistence as the correct usage over non-lactase persistence, on the basis that 'non' qualifies persistence, even if lactase persistence is considered a compound noun. We are also grateful to L. Howe, Senior Research Associate at the MRC IEU for providing derived spousal pairs in UK Biobank. We acknowledge the use of the UCL Computer Science ECON High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster (ECON@UCL) and associated support services, in the completion of this work. This study was also supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. Author information Author notes 1. Adrian Timpson Present address: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany 2. Veronika Brychova Present address: Nuclear Dosimetry Department, Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic 3. Volker Heyd Present address: Department of Cultures, Section of Archaeology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 4. Emily Johnson Present address: Archaeology South-East, UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK 5. Olivia Lelong Present address: Eunomia Research & Consulting, Bristol, UK 6. Joachim Pechtl Present address: Department of Archaeology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria 7. Peter Rowe Present address: North Yorkshire County Council HER, Northallerton, UK 8. Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka Present address: Faculty of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland 9. Ivana Vostrovska Present address: Department of History, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic Authors and Affiliations 1. Organic Geochemistry Unit, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Richard P. Evershed, Melanie Roffet-Salque, Emmanuelle Casanova, Jessica Smyth, Helen L. Whelton, Julie Dunne, Lucija Soberl & Iain Kendall 2. MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK George Davey Smith & Matthew S. Lyon 3. Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK George Davey Smith & Matthew S. Lyon 4. NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK George Davey Smith & Matthew S. Lyon 5. Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK Adrian Timpson, Yoan Diekmann, Pascale Gerbault & Mark G. Thomas 6. Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution (iomE), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Yoan Diekmann 7. Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Lucy J. E. Cramp & Volker Heyd 8. School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Jessica Smyth 9. Department of Dairy, Fat and Cosmetics, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Veronika Brychova 10. School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, London, UK Pascale Gerbault 11. Archeozoologie, Archeobotanique: Societes, Pratiques et Environnement (UMR 7209), CNRS-Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle-Sorbonne Universites, Paris, France Rosalind E. Gillis & Jean-Denis Vigne 12. ICArEHB, Faculdade de Ciencias Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal Rosalind E. Gillis 13. Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK Emily Johnson & Alan K. Outram 14. Department of Geography, King's College London, London, UK Katie Manning 15. Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland Arkadiusz Marciniak 16. UCL Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK Stephen Shennan, Andrew Bevan & Sue Colledge 17. Great North Museum (former Museum of Antiquities), Newcastle, UK Lyndsay Allason-Jones 18. National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, the Netherlands Luc Amkreutz 19. Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary Alexandra Anders, Pal Raczky & Katalin Sebok 20. UMR 7044, ARCHIMEDE, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France Rose-Marie Arbogast & Christian Jeunesse 21. Department of Bioarchaeology, 'Vasile Parvan' Institute of Archaeology, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania Adrian Balasescu 22. Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Eotvos Lorand Research Network, Centre of Excellence of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary Eszter Banffy, Janos Jakucs, Tibor Marton & Krisztian Oross 23. Romisch-Germanische Kommission, Frankfurt, Germany Eszter Banffy 24. Cotswold Archaeology, Cirencester, UK Alistair Barclay 25. German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, Germany Anja Behrens & Friedrich Luth 26. School of Engineering and Applied Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA Peter Bogucki 27. Area de Prehistoria, Departamento de Historia, Geografia y Comunicacion, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain Angel Carrancho Alonso 28. Laboratorio Evolucion Humana, University of Burgos, Burgos, Spain Jose Miguel Carretero, Marta Frances-Negro & Eneko Iriarte 29. Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humana, Madrid, Spain Jose Miguel Carretero 30. Network Archaeology, Lincoln, UK Nigel Cavanagh 31. LVR-State Service for Archaeological Heritage, Bonn, Germany Erich Classen 32. Patrimonio & Arte Research Group, Extremadura University, Badajoz and Caceres, Badajoz, Spain Hipolito Collado Giraldo 33. Geosciences Centre, Coimbra University, Coimbra, Portugal Hipolito Collado Giraldo & Luiz Oosterbeek 34. Landesamt fur Archaeologie, Dresden, Germany Matthias Conrad, Matthias Halle, Saskia Kretschmer, Germo Schmalfuss & Harald Stauble 35. Herman Otto Museum, Miskolc, Hungary Piroska Csengeri 36. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland Lech Czerniak & Joanna Pyzel 37. Institute of Archaeology, University Rzeszow, Rzeszow, Poland Maciej Debiec 38. UMR 6298, ARTEHIS, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France Anthony Denaire 39. Dobo Istvan Castle Museum, Eger, Hungary Laszlo Domboroczki 40. The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery & Museum, Dundee, UK Christina Donald 41. Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany Julia Ebert & Wolfram Schier 42. Cambridge Archaeological Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Christopher Evans 43. Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology, Mainz, Germany Detlef Gronenborn 44. Archaeological Department, Landesmuseum Wurttemberg, Stuttgart, Germany Fabian Haack 45. UMR 8215, Trajectoires, Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, France Caroline Hamon & Michael Ilett 46. State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, Saxony Anhalt/State Museum of Prehistory, Halle/Saale, Germany Roman Hulshoff 47. CFA Archaeology, Musselburgh, UK Melanie Johnson 48. Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Cornwall Council, Truro, UK Andy M. Jones 49. Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey Necmi Karul 50. 'I.I. Mechnikov', Odessa National University, Odessa, Ukraine Dmytro Kiosak 51. Ca' Foscari, University of Venice, Venice, Italy Dmytro Kiosak 52. Institute of Archaeology of Academy of Science of Ukraine, Kiev, Ukraine Nadezhda Kotova 53. Prehistory Department, Institut of Archaeology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt, Germany Rudiger Krause & Astrid Stobbe 54. Department of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland Marta Kruger 55. UMR 7044, INRAP Grand-Est Sud, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France Philippe Lefranc 56. GUARD Glasgow, Glasgow, UK Olivia Lelong 57. Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Eva Lenneis & Peter Stadler 58. Kostanay State University, Kostanay, Kazakhstan Andrey Logvin & Irina Shevnina 59. Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, UK Jane Marley 60. Oxford Archaeology East, Oxford, UK Richard Mortimer 61. Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Tomar, Portugal Luiz Oosterbeek 62. Terra e Memoria Institute, Macao, Portugal Luiz Oosterbeek 63. Archeologicky ustav SAV, Nitra, Slovakia Juraj Pavuk 64. Kelten Romer Museum Manching, Manching, Germany Joachim Pechtl 65. MSHE C.N. Ledoux, CNRS & University of Franche-Comte, Besancon, France Pierre Petrequin 66. Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Joshua Pollard 67. Leicestershire County Council Museums, Leicestershire, UK Richard Pollard & Helen Sharp 68. The Landscape Research Centre Ltd., West Heslerton, UK Dominic Powlesland 69. Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Canterbury, UK Andrew Richardson 70. Tees Archaeology, Hartlepool, UK Peter Rowe 71. Oxford Archaeology North, Lancaster, UK Stephen Rowland 72. Archaeological Consultancy, Emsworth, UK Ian Rowlandson 73. Institute of History, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany Thomas Saile 74. Institute of History and Archaeology, UB RAS, Ekaterinburg, Russia Svetlana Sharapova 75. National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK Alison Sheridan 76. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka 77. Geology Department, University of Tras-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal Darko Stojanovski 78. Department of Humanistic Studies, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy Darko Stojanovski 79. University of Belgrade, Belgrad, Serbia Nenad Tasic & Jasna Vukovic 80. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands Ivo van Wijk 81. Institute of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Ivana Vostrovska 82. Staatliches Museum fur Archaologie, Chemnitz, Germany Sabine Wolfram 83. Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz, Dir. Landesarchaologie, Speyer, Germany Andrea Zeeb-Lanz 84. UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK Mark G. Thomas Authors 1. Richard P. Evershed View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar 2. 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M.R.-S., A.T., Y.D. and M.S.L., acquired data, assembled new databases and undertook statistical modelling. G.D.S. and M.S.L. performed the UK Biobank analyses. Y.D., A.T. and M.G.T. conceptualized the selection model likelihood analysis. Y.D. and A.T. performed the selection model testing. A.T. devised the kernel interpolation and generated Figs. 1, 2 and 3. M.G.T., R.P.E., G.D.S., M.R.-S., Y.D., A.T. and M.S.L. wrote the paper. All other authors contributed either critical archaeological information, pottery from excavations, data of various types and expert knowledge. All authors read and approved the manuscript. Corresponding authors Correspondence to Richard P. Evershed, George Davey Smith, Melanie Roffet-Salque or Mark G. Thomas. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Peer review Peer review information Nature thanks Daniel Wegmann, Nicola Pirastu, Shevan Wilkin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Additional information Publisher's note published maps and institutional affiliations. Extended data figures and tables Extended Data Fig. 1 Regional fluctuations in milk use throughout European prehistory. Percentage of milk fats through time, calculated using all animal fat residues. Grey bars and black lines illustrate 95%, 50% CI and MAP in each time slice, using a uniform prior. Extended Data Fig. 2 Summary of model selection results for the tested ecological time series. Inverse solar insolation, fluctuations in population level, and residential density yield models significantly better than a null model of constant selection (significance computed by likelihood ratio test). See Extended Data Table 1 for corresponding parameter estimates, and multiple testing correction (no change in the set of significant models). Abbreviations: assimilation (assi.), inverse (inv.), fluctuation (fluc.). Extended Data Fig. 3 Inverse insolation as a driver of selection strength. Optimized parameters, resulting selection strength- and LP allele frequency curves for inverse (inv.) insolation, one of the four ecological proxy variables yielding likelihoods significantly better than a constant selection model. Although LP is generally thought of as a dominant trait, we only show the additive model results as the parameter estimates barely differ. Extended Data Table 1 Model selection results for the tested ecological time series Full size table Extended Data Table 2 Lactase genotype frequency and test for departure from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium Full size table Extended Data Table 3 Lactase persistence genotype correlation between spousal pairs in UK Biobank Full size table Extended Data Fig. 4 Population fluctuation as a driver of selection strength. Optimized parameters, resulting selection strength- and LP allele frequency curves for population (pop.) fluctuations (fluc.), one of the four ecological proxy variables yielding likelihoods significantly better than a constant selection model. Although LP is generally thought of as a dominant trait, we only show the additive model results as the parameter estimates barely differ. Extended Data Fig. 5 Settlement density as a driver of selection strength. Optimized parameters, resulting selection strength- and LP allele frequency curves for the cluster statistic, one of the four ecological proxy variables yielding likelihoods significantly better than a constant selection model. Although LP is generally thought of as a dominant trait, we only show the additive model results as the parameter estimates barely differ. Extended Data Fig. 6 Wild animal consumption as a driver of selection strength. Optimized parameters, resulting selection strength- and LP allele frequency curves for proportion of wild versus domestic animal, one of the four ecological proxy variables yielding likelihoods significantly better than a constant selection model. Although LP is generally thought of as a dominant trait, we only show the additive model results as the parameter estimates barely differ. Extended Data Table 4 Proportion of significant likelihood differences between constant and fluctuating selection model driven by milk exploitation Full size table Supplementary information Supplementary Information Supplementary Table 1 and Figs. 1-9. Reporting Summary Rights and permissions Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. Reprints and Permissions About this article Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark Cite this article Evershed, R.P., Davey Smith, G., Roffet-Salque, M. et al. Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe. Nature 608, 336-345 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05010-7 Download citation * Received: 29 January 2021 * Accepted: 22 June 2022 * Published: 27 July 2022 * Issue Date: 11 August 2022 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05010-7 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Further reading * The mystery of early milk consumption in Europe + Shevan Wilkin Nature (2022) * How humans' ability to digest milk evolved from famine and disease + Ewen Callaway Nature (2022) Comments By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate. 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